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If you really cared about these kids and want what is best for them, you would not be seeking this sort of advice from martial artists. You would go ask several pediatricians their advice on this subject.

At least now I know how to get Ellis, Fred, and other bright and experienced people to respond to a thread...

Anyway, Thomas posted this proposed waiver:

Quote:

We, the undersigned parents, agree to hold harmless the instructors and the shcool teaching Aikido, and Aikido Wrist Locks to our children. We agreet to hold harmless the School and Instructors for any injuries our children may experience in training with Aikido Wrist Locks. Further, we agree to advise our children of the dangers of applying wrist locks to other children or persons. We Agree to defend any actions brought against the school or instructors for teaching Aikdo Wrist locks, for any improper use by our children of Aikdo Wrist Locks. We agree pay for any legal or other expenses to defend the shool and instructors against any lawsuits for injuries to anyone, by the unauthorized, unlawful or non-self-defense use of Aikido wrist Locks. We further agree to indemnify the Shcool or Instructors for any payments to setlle any lawsuits involving our children's use of wrist-locks, or wrist-lock information, taught in the shool, or by the instructors.

As a parent, I would never, ever sign such a waiver. EVER! There's absolutely no incentive for a parent to sign it -- no give and take with the school, just give. The school and/or instructors wouldn't even be financially liable for an injury if they cause one!

All that aside, I understand that waivers are important for schools, but how well do they hold up in court?

They aren't guaranteed to hold up. You be a fool not to have one, but in the case here, it wouldn't protect the OP from ignoring the advice of long term experts and practitioners in the field. If he did everything right, he might have a chance. But since he is ignoring all the red flags, it's likely that a court would simply say "extreme negligence", and move on.

Best,
Ron (not a laywer, so...boatload of salt)

Ron Tisdale
-----------------------
"The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind."
St. Bonaventure (ca. 1221-1274)

An interesting concept that you'll see in these types of suits is "deliberate indifference". Basically, it means that you are aware of the danger you are facing and the consequences and choose to ignore it to the detriment or injury of someone else. I'm not a lawyer either, but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express one night.

"Wristlock is a commonly used physical restraining manoeuvre to control aggressive and violent persons in penal and medical institutions. We report three cases of similar physeal injuries to the distal radius sustained consequent to a wristlock restraint. There may be a higher morbidity involved when wristlock restraint is used on those with an immature skeleton. We recommend that caution must be exercised whenever a wristlock restraint is used on individuals under 16 years of age."

This has been mentioned before, but here it is again. A member of my dojo, who is also a physician, agreed with what everybody has been saying here.

Ignoring the advice of the collection of highly experienced martial artists who have responded to your question is complete foolishness, given your admitted complete lack of experience. You should get off the internet and go to a dojo....

"Wristlock is a commonly used physical restraining manoeuvre to control aggressive and violent persons in penal and medical institutions. We report three cases of similar physeal injuries to the distal radius sustained consequent to a wristlock restraint. There may be a higher morbidity involved when wristlock restraint is used on those with an immature skeleton. We recommend that caution must be exercised whenever a wristlock restraint is used on individuals under 16 years of age."

This has been mentioned before, but here it is again. A member of my dojo, who is also a physician, agreed with what everybody has been saying here.

Ignoring the advice of the collection of highly experienced martial artists who have responded to your question is complete foolishness, given your admitted complete lack of experience. You should get off the internet and go to a dojo....

You are to be commended for taking the trouble to ask a physician about teaching children Aikido.

Unfortunately, the wording of the above post indicates that all the implications of all the fearfullly exaggerated possiblities posted in this thread, are 200% accurate. "If you let your child learn ANY Aikido Wrist Locks or foot work manuevers, with a wrist lock, your child will grow up to be a hunchback cripple!!!" The Genes will be altered by Aikido and the sholders, wrists and elbows, of both arms will be deformed.

No reports of any permanent injury have been reported anywhere on this thread, but the implication of the fears seems beyond permanent, to the spiritual after life.

The Warning about not using wrist-locks quotes in the above post, is taken out of context, and is from an article for which I posted the reference, earlier in the thread. The article is about injuries to three individuals restrained in Brittish Night Clubs by bouncers. Bouncers and Bar Owners are breing cautioned about possible injury to rowdy individuals under 16 years old, by the application of RESTRAINING types of wrist-locks.

So now 4000 people viewing this thread are being told to keep their children away from Aikido schools. Football is OK.

Why don't you ask the doctor friend at your Dojo to do a Medline research on wrist injuries, and the permanent effects, if any, to the elbows and shoulders from wrist injuries. Post those references.

I broke my wrist a couple of times falling off motorcycles, in my teens. My wrists healed OK. Children's wrists are still growing under the direction of DNA. So how does strain on the wrists, from Aikido wrist-locks, Change DNA? Aikido wrist locks change your DNA?

So, it's not ok to generalize based on a medical study, but fine to generalize based on an accident that happened to one person in his teens. Peer review by Professionals apparently is highly over rated.

This was apparently not relavent at all:
"There may be a higher morbidity involved when wristlock restraint is used on those with an immature skeleton. We recommend that caution must be exercised whenever a wristlock restraint is used on individuals under 16 years of age."

Question: Are not some of the bullies roudy individuals under 16? Is it ok for them to be injured because they are "bullies"?

Your opinion is a little short on content. Medical Degrees? Overall Risk studies? You want to ban square dancing in shcools where partners swing with locked elbows? Risk to the shoulders?

Do you have any medical degrees? I have trained with various medical professionals, all of whom disagree with your opinion.

Do you have any rank in a martial art that would qualify you to teach children? Many of the people posting here not only have extensive degrees in many arts, but they have also at one time or another, taught and or raised children.

I don't (and I don't believe others have) suggest **banning** anything except **you** teaching wristlocks and dancing to young children under the **pretense** of effective self-defense.

Your response to the posts in this thread speak volumes as to who is short of what. I see no progress has yet been made...

Best,
Ron

Ron Tisdale
-----------------------
"The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind."
St. Bonaventure (ca. 1221-1274)

...all the implications of all the fearfullly exaggerated possiblities posted in this thread, are 200% accurate. "If you let your child learn ANY Aikido Wrist Locks or foot work manuevers, with a wrist lock, your child will grow up to be a hunchback cripple!!!" The Genes will be altered by Aikido and the sholders, wrists and elbows, of both arms will be deformed.

Now you show yourself to be not only unreasonable and unreasoning, but a liar.

No one in this thread has made any such claims as you state above. Hence, you either cannot read, or are incredibly lacking in the capacity to reason. Or you just enjoy lying. Pick your poison.

Quote:

So now 4000 people viewing this thread are being told to keep their children away from Aikido schools. Football is OK.

Again, no one has said this. What they have said is that the joint locks in aikido can have serious implications if applied without caution on children whose growth plates are not fully formed. Many of the people here have actually **taught** children aikido, have active training programs at their dojo that **teach** children, and some would even **recommend** aikido classes for children. With the above warning.

Personally, I would recommend wrestling or judo...but that is just me.

Your hyperbole and falsehoods have not gone unnoticed. What amazes me is that people have actually tried to intelligently engage you, and you have rebuffed all of their efforts, ending in completely mis-characterizing everything that they have said.

Best,
Ron (wow, just...wow)

Last edited by Ron Tisdale : 05-01-2009 at 10:57 AM.

Ron Tisdale
-----------------------
"The higher a monkey climbs, the more you see of his behind."
St. Bonaventure (ca. 1221-1274)

You are to be commended for taking the trouble to ask a physician about teaching children Aikido.

Well, thanks. As I said in my post, the doctor is a MEMBER of my dojo - she and her daughter are both my students. We had a long talk when they started training. She agreed with me about joint locks and kids - that in her professional opinion they were a BAD idea.

And anyway, you have seemingly forgotten many of the other points people have made - mainly that wrist locks are hard to do under stress without a lot of practice and that any kids you teach are liable to get the crap kicked out of them if that's all they know.

I have seen people driven by all types of ideologies and known true believers of many faiths, but this is the first fundamentalist wrist lock dancer I have come across. The narrowness, intensity and uniqueness of his vision has me convinced he's ready to start a successful cult.

There are two types of attackers that might be discussed. One is the angry attacker, who has an emotional upset, who is seeking to vent his anger at the victim. The anger may have been caused by the victim, or by associates of the victim. The point of Aikido Anger Reduction is to allow the Angry Attacker to express his feeling, and acknowledge the reasoning behind his anger. As the attacker expresses the reasoning behind his anger, his anger may, hopefully, diminish.

A relationship between the attacker's energies and the Victim's energies can occur. The Attacker, as he calms down, will realize that the victim now has a reasons to attack back at him. So the trust built up, that the victim is ONLY trying to protect himself, as the chance of creating a bond of trust. The attacker may gain repsect for the victim skillfully avoiding injury, without counter-attack.

Another type of attacker could be motivated for MISCHIEF. The attacker may be interested in boosting his own ego, by displaying intimidaiton over the victim. By the Victim refusing to attack the Attacker, but standing his ground, the attacker may eventually get tired of trying to attack the Victim.

An exercise I practised recently was to practice releasing the attacker, and moving quicly to an open area, where I could stand my ground if the attacker treid to intimidate me, further. One reason to release an attacker is to avoid injuiring the attacker, if the dance has worked into an area that is too small to be safe.

Again, during the dance with the Attacker who is up to Mischief, a rapport can be developed of respect and trust. The victim refusing to counter-attack the attacker gives an atmosphere of respect.

I pracrticed my wrist excercises at a dining room table the other day. I did my duck demonstration, how the wrist can be hurt when bent, and the forward and backward wrist rolling ,dynamic tensioning exercises. The idea was to find times to keep informally in practice for wrist-lock practice.

There are some attackers who are intent on murdering the victim. If the intensity of the acker does not diminish, with a wrist-lock dance, this may be a clue to switch to a more self-protecting mode, with less concern for avoiding injury to the attacker. Hopefully, the murderous attack is not encountered in a high percentage of confrontations.

If I was a parent of a child you were trying to pitch your program to, I'd expect you to be able to produce similar credentials - A degree (preferably advanced) in Psychology, EC Education, years of experience as an educator, as well as instructor level certification in the techniques you intend to teach.

Your taxonomy of attackers isn't complete. Some attack from a mindset of anger, others attack from mischief (mischief is perhaps a weak word when describing a bully), and others attack with murderous intent just as you described. There are others who attack because of some gang initiation and/or in relation to a gang initiative, while there are still others who are sociopathic. While the percentage of attackers who initiate an attack because of pathology, gang activity or murderous intent is small, a mischievious attacker or an angry one can quickly become murderous in action. A wise individual who is attacked would assume the worst and protect himself. That does not mean kill or maim his attacker, but rather be willing and able to use the amount of force needed to protect himself. Perhaps a properly applied wrist lock will be sufficient, and it is equally possible that a wrist lock will be provocative enough to escalate the encounter.

I continue to be concerned that your concept is so limited in martial applicability and efficacy. Your potential students need to know what to do if the "wristlock dance" doesn't work. If they don't have that level of knowledge and skill, they will be subject to a sense of false confidence.

Secondly, by your own admission, you are not qualified to teach wristlocks by training, experience or skill. You may be a terrific teacher academically, but you claim little or no knowledge of martial arts training or technique.

Thirdly, you discount the advice given by others that wrist locks are dangerous to youngsters. I am not a physician and have only anecdotal experience in injuries relating to wrist locks and control holds. In thirty years of controlling suspects as a law enforcement officer, I've seen a number of injuries. I am an assistant instructor in a youth class and have seen the lack of control some kids have when doing techniques and it varies from child to child. As a result, we do not teach wrist or joint locks to our youth classes as the possibility of injured joints is just too high.

Lastly, there are some significant liability issues involved. If, even by accident, we are right and joint locks are bad for kids, you, your school administrators and school district may well face litigation. If your training doesn't go far enough to protect the kids, or if you teach something incorrectly, litigation probably will ensue.

You stated earlier that you wanted advice and implied that you aren't interested in criticism. So be it and here it is:

1. Develop a program of instruction and have it peer-reviewed by local martial arts practitioners of instructor level.

2. Develop your own teaching skills to provide the training by attending classes yourself or finding a qualified instructor.

3. Get a buy-in from your school administration to determine if they want to have your program taught and that your program is consistent with their policies regarding self-defense and fighting.

Please remember that this stuff doesn't happen in a vacuum and there are real people involved and real-world consequences. As Bismark said "Any fool can learn from his own mistakes, but a wise man learns from the mistakes of others." Those who have taken the time to reply to you have seen the mistakes of others and have made their own as well. Be wise.

*munches popcorn* You know, I thought I'd just quit reading this thread but dammit I just can't seem to! It's like not being able to stop watching a terribly cheesy soap opera because you just gotta see what happens next. *slurps his Coke*